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EDITORIAL: Elections officials
find good solution for
ballots
After a
software glitch rendered their electronic voting machines
unusable for the Nov. 6 general election, Wayne County
officials scrambled for a
solution.
While voters may be shocked
to be handed a piece of paper at the polls in November, they
need to remember that the Board of Elections had no other
cost-effective alternative. The old lever-style machines have
been scrapped and new software for their 100 WINvote
electronic voting machines would not be certified by the state
in time. Purchasing other equipment would have cost the county
thousands of dollars.
Faced with the
unfortunate need to use paper ballots, the Board of Elections
initially decided to hire additional help to manually count
the ballots at the courthouse instead of acquiring expensive
scanning equipment. This would have cost about $12,000 for the
added manpower and to print the
ballots.
However, through the
perseverance of county officials, the state Department of
State has agreed to fund the leasing of an eScan digital
ballot imaging system that would have cost county taxpayers
$53,000. This equipment will not only expedite tabulating the
results on election night, it will also ensure that the counts
are accurate.
Also, the company that
is providing the eScan, Hart InterCivic, will print the
ballots and provide personnel to operate its equipment. This
means there will be no time or money wasted training county
employees how to use equipment that should be used only
once.
We salute the Board of
Elections for finding what is certainly the best solution to a
bad situation and acquiring the eScan equipment at no expense
to the county.
Wayne County officials
did not know until late August that there might be a problem
with the WINvote machines and immediately began planning
alternatives if they could not be used. The board should be
commended for obtaining this equipment at no cost to
taxpayers.
We encourage the Board of
Elections to stay on top of the Department of State and
Advanced Voting Solutions, the manufacturers of the WINvote
machines, to make sure the proper changes are made to allow
the county’s electronic voting machines to be used in future
elections. County taxpayers paid nearly $300,000 for 100
WINvote machines and that money shouldn’t be allowed to sit on
a shelf while other equipment and paper ballots are used to
run the county’s elections.
If a
solution to the WINvote’s technical problem can not be found
and the machine can’t be certified in the near future, county
officials should seek a refund from Advanced Voting Solutions
and obtain electronic voting machines from another supplier.
 
27.SEP.07 EDITORIAL: Elections officials find
good solution for ballots
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